


O Fortuna

by Pallanwen



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pagan Gods, Roman Myths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pallanwen/pseuds/Pallanwen
Summary: You never know when the gods are listening...A look at what might have taken place after the events of 1x10 "Triumph".
Relationships: Eirene/Titus Pullo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	O Fortuna

**Author's Note:**

  * For [logorrhea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/logorrhea/gifts).



> Dear Leigh, thank you so much for your prompts. I loved that you had Rome on your list of Yuletide fandoms! And classical mythology! 
> 
> So I just knew I had to try and combine both things – and this is what happened. It has Pullo and Eirene and it has Aphrodite (in her Roman incarnation of Venus) and several other gods although I couldn't really fit Hephaestus into the story. It turned out darker than I expected, but there is light on the horizon!

Titus Pullo is a practical man. A man, who prefers simple things: A good sword, a quick battle, a big jug of wine, a game of dice that isn't rigged. A woman with bright eyes, a good smile and firm tits. When he talks to the gods he likes to keep it simple, too – no stuffy priests, tedious rituals or expensive oracles. Just a few words and a quick sacrifice of whatever is at hand, be it as tiny as a mouse or an insect.

He doesn't make it overly complicated: "Mars Gradivus, let me live through this battle", "Fortuna, help me with these dice", "Apollo, get rid of this _fucking_ headache!".

He doubts many of these prayers get through, though – surely, the gods have to listen to thousands of similar pleas each day. And if the prayers do reach them, they probably take care of the official requests first – the big ones, fuelled by chanting priests and grandiose sacrifices.

But Pullo was never a man to give up easily. He is as stubborn as he is straightforward and he keeps praying his quick, messy prayers. You never know with the gods... 

  
[...]

When they do listen it is in the moment Pullo couldn't be further from believing in divine intervention. 

  
Vorenus' voice is still echoing in his head as Pullo walks off into the night. "You do this violence before my children?! You're a damned fool! The disrespect! The stupidity! I'm a candidate for magistrate, I can't have killings in my yard!" 

A stranger in a white toga, Caesar's puppet. Not the comrade and brother Pullo came to trust with his life.

Behind him, in the courtyard of the Voreni house, the woman Pullo loved, is wailing over the dead body of a slave. 

This is how the gods are fucking with you – sending you from bright happiness into the foulest pits of despair within the blink of an eye.

How could Eirene's smile, the absolute joy in her eyes, when he told her she was being freed, turn into _this_ so quickly?

  
Oh yes, because Titus Pullo is a blundering fool of a man, who didn't see what was happening right under his nose. What happened to the woman he loved from that very first moment he saw her staggering in front of that ox cart. The woman he saved and nurtured until warmth and trust and... something else grew between them.

How could she fall in love with that slave from the Voreni household and how could Pullo fail to notice it? _Because he is the biggest fucking idiot who ever walked the face of Gaia's green earth_?!

Now everything is drenched in howling red and Eirene is screaming and there's blood on Pullo's hands.

He's not even aware that he's praying, mumbling words under his breath. A plea to Mars who saved his ass during so many battles. And... a rare call to Venus, because this... this sodding, blood-stained mess was love once, after all?

  
[...]

Once Pullo has left and the crying Eirene has been led into the house by a pale and shaking Niobe, the courtyard lies silent under a moonless sky.

Then _something_ is happening.

  
At first it's just the scent of roses and myrtle. Then a tangy breeze from the sea, an echo of the waves breaking on the Cytheran beach. Below, the heady scent of bodies conjoining shines through: warm flesh and sweat and laughter and moans of ecstasy all coming together.

Venus Victrix has arrived.

Her voice floats across the deserted courtyard, where the blood of Oedipus the slave still stains the column on which he died. She is the flutter of birds' wings, a flock of sparrows and a white swan like a warship cutting the bright surface of a lake. 

" _Why should I grant him his wish when the man he killed had just as much entitlement to ask for love and happiness? The girl didn't love Titus Pullo – not yet. There was fondness, yes, and growing trust. But I heard no prayers from her_."

A sparrow picks spilled seeds from the floor. The scent of roses grows stronger. 

" _When prayers were spoken to me in this place_ ," Venus says, " _they didn't come from her. Neither did they come from Titus Pullo, who prayed to Mars and Priapus, to Fortuna and Dis, but not to me. But I heard a voice ring out from this house, I received sacrifices however small they might be – they came from the man who has now entered Pluto's realm: Oedipus the slave._ "

" _A slave_!" The laughter that confronts Venus words is iron-sharp.

Mars has entered the scene, too.

His voice is the roar of battle, he reeks of blood and steel. The flesh that Venus is caressing is the one he tears apart. His breath is hot like the desert wind, a storm drenched with trembling violence and cries of agony. But he's not only the one of the bright spear and the fiery horses. He is also Mars Pater, the protector of the fruitful soil and the safe boundaries around the city his descendants have founded.

" _I have heard Titus Pullo's prayer_ ," he says. " _I have guided him through many battles, protected his life and gave him rich spoils. He always thanked me with heartfelt words and honest sacrifice. I don't see why I should not listen today when his need is greates_ t."

Venus twists and turns, her rosy breeze barely noticeable against the scent of blood that stains the courtyard, emphasized by Mars' presence.

She is weak here – the last time the Voreni prayed to her was months ago. Nowadays the unhappiness that reeks from Niobe's bed has spun a black veil around the house that is rarely permeated by the light of prayer and the scent of sacrifice. The Voreni do obey the gods, oh yes, they do – but it's the smalls gods of ancestral duty that are strongest in their house. Them, and petty Juno, who has been invoked by both, husband and wife with increasing despair.

While Venus is still pondering if she can argue with Mars – here, on the blood stained courtyard that grants him power even if no syllable of prayer is spoken, another presence manifests. A stranger.

  
A cold wind is blowing from beyond the Rhine – it brings a presence that is harsher and crueller than the sun-soaked gods of the Mediterranean. The newcomer's thoughts are carried by raven wings and his breath smells of gallows' meat. He is a stranger wherever he goes and he rules over battles and magic. His are the slain – and the prisoners.

" _She is mine, too_ ," his voice rings out – a boreal gust rattling ash and fir branches, making the Olympians shiver.

" _The girl's fate has been decided_ ," he says. " _The warrior does not concern me – although he might have been a welcome follower of Thor if he had been born in the north – but Adela belongs to me. Her life's thread has been spun and measured by the Norns who dwell at the roots of Yggdrasil and draw water from the Well of Urðr. Haggle and bargain as you like – the runes have been cast and the end has been foretold_."

" _She might be yours, but Titus Pullo is not_ ," Mars replies, but the north wind is louder than the iron-rattle of his voice. 

The rose and myrtle smell of Venus is barely traceable now.

" _She was loved by a man who prayed to me_ ," she insists. Her voice is low, but defiant. 

The scent of roses wraps around the sharp scent of steel. The noise of battle is softened by the warmth of lover's arms as Mars steps up beside his half-sister.

" _She lives and loves and suffers on Roman soi_ l," he roars, rallying the red winds from the south against the boreal forces. "I _n the city that was built by the descendants of my children. She falls under my dominion – and maybe even under my half-sister's – but not under yours_!"

The stranger from the north gathers his powers. The air grows colder and there are wolves howling in the distance. Not the she-wolf who nursed the divine founders of the city, but lean wolves from the north, greedy and ravenous.

  
But he does not get the chance to reply. Because now, Fortuna arrives. She, of the turning wheel, and the bountiful grain. The carrier of the cornucopia, the dancer on the golden ball. Her voice encompasses giddy laughter as much as the most desperate tears.

" _Titus Pullo is mine_ ," she states. " _As is his friend and brother-in-arms Lucius Vorenus. And every soul, whose fate is tied to those two men, falls under my dominion. No matter how many prayers have reached you, no matter how high the sacrificial fires burnt_."

The floor is still blood-stained, but somewhere on another plane a vast golden orb has been set into motion, casting small, amber-coloured sparkles from the stone slabs.

" _Adela's fate is sealed_ ," the stranger from the north says. " _Even you cannot do anything to avoid it. It doesn't even lie in my power to change what the Norns foretold_."

" _Maybe_ ," Fortuna says. " _But his isn't. What happens to Titus Pullo is as mutable as the cast of the dice_."

Her delicate feet are moving on the golden ball, making it spin. A million images are flickering in the golden reflections. Eyes and faces, laughter and tears, childbirth and bloody battle, marriage and murder. There is a knife flashing in the Aventine alleyways, there are gladiators and the blood-stained sand of an arena, a man in a purple toga collapsing on the Senate floor and a boy-king with serpentine eyes. But there is also Eirene, smiling. There are olive trees and marriage vows and kind eyes and brothers clasping hands. 

" _I am not the Parcae_ ," Fortuna says. " _I do not predict the course of lives. But I roll the dice_."

The golden ball spins faster and faster. It collects light, shining brighter until it seems to put Apollo's sun to shame. And like the sun, the warmth that radiates from it grows stronger – until the north wind dies down and the howling of the wolves fades into the distance.

" _I am Fortuna. I do not answer prayers. But I cast the dice and I say one thing: Let's give him one more chanc_ e."

  
[...]

  
The night is dark, there is no moon and the air hangs heavy in the narrow streets of the Aventine. 

There's gambling in every tavern – dice are rolling, cones are switched and nimble fingers move wooden figures across elaborately marked boards.

Fortuna is roaming the streets – sometimes she grants her mercy, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she just listens.

Back in the house of the Voreni, Eirene is still crying – she won't stop until she falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. 

  
Somewhere not far away, Titus Pullo is roaming the streets. Swaying, dizzy with wine and opium, fingers clenched around the dice box, he is praying, swearing, yelling – filling his head with violent noise to escape the thoughts and feeling that are haunting him.

Fortuna watches him. She rolls a pair of dice in her hands: bone-white and blood-warm from touch.

Pullo is sitting at a gambler's table. He casts his dice and curses. Kicking the table, he stomps out of the tavern, anger and despair surrounding him like a blazing cloud.

Fortuna casts her dice as well. And the she smiles.

The wind is blowing from the sea again. Does it carry the faintest scent of roses?

From the alleys of the Aventine Pullo can't see it yet, but there is a thin slice of silvery dawn just above the horizon. 


End file.
